


Screwing

by HalfASlug



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: Ellie visits Hardy's new house and is disturbed by what she finds.





	Screwing

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from heather-g98 on tumblr: Hardy and Ellie build Ikea furniture together.

“So this is the new crib, then?”

“It’s where I live, yes.”

Ellie grinned at Hardy’s frown as she moved through the house. Having him back was a mixture of truly bizarre and completely normal. Sometimes she would forget he was around and be surprised to see him slouching behind her, but when they were talking to each other it was like no time had past at all.

Seeing him out of his waterside hut was strange though. The little blue shack she had used to hide from the world was part of him as far as she was concerned.

She had popped over under the guise of giving him a lift to work. When she showed up thirty minutes early, they both knew she really just wanted to see his new house.

So far the tour had been fairly standard. She noted that the presence of a teenage girl was undeniable with school books and make up left on random surfaces. Other than that, it was similar to his old place. Nautical decorations that had no doubt come with the property were dotted around. There were more personal effects this time around. Photographs of Daisy and other people she didn’t recognise were mixed in with trinkets.

Really, the only mockable part had been the number of lamps. She stood by her point though: no room with french windows needed six more light sources.

Once she’d poked her head around the bathroom door and laughed at how neat his home office was, they reached a closed door.

“You don’t need to go in there,” he told her gruffly.

“Daisy’s room?”

“No.”

“So your room?” Ellie smirked as she slowly opened the door.

“Miller.” He pulled the door shut and levelled her with a reprimanding stare.

“Hang on - did I just see-” Ellie pushed the door back open as though he wasn’t holding it. “What the fuck is that?”

With a sigh, Hardy followed her into the room and looked at what she was gesturing to. “What?”

“Are you sleeping on the floor?”

“No. Don’t be stupid.”

“Then what-”

“The mattress is on the bed!”

Ellie looked at him, then where he was pointing and back at him again. “The bed is still in the box!”

She went over to what was passing as a sleeping arrangement and inspected it. Sure enough, under the fully made mattress and bedsheets, was a box that contained a flatpacked Ikea bed.

“How long ago did you move in?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “Two weeks ago.”

“You’ve been sleeping on the floor for two weeks!”

“On a mattress!”

“That’s on the floor!”

“It’s on a bed!”

“That’s in a box, you fuckwit!”

“So?”

Too angry to speak, she threw her bag down and started taking off her coat.

“What are you doing now?”

“You can’t live like this.”  She pulled the mattress of the box while Hardy made a noise of protest. “A fully grown man can’t sleep on the floor. Especially with a heart condition!”

“It’s not - I’m not getting into that again.”

Half an hour later, Hardy’s room was a mess of packaging and carefully ordered piles of screws and other things that they needed to make the bed. He had tried to help her with the instructions but she shooed him away and got him to move the large sections instead. He had lost any right to take control of the project by literally sleeping on it for two weeks.

“We’re going to be late for work,” he complained as he held something for her.

“I’m sure everyone won’t mind once I explain this mess to them,” she replied absentmindedly. “Where’s the allen key?”

Soon enough, the basic shape of the bed began to come together. Hardy watched in awe as she checked the instructions less and less as they went on. She didn’t want to brag but when she had moved to Devon with Fred their flat had been furnished entirely with Ikea products. As a result, she was fully fluent in the various pegs and screws and could even predict the next steps.

If she really wanted to impress him, she could probably have put the bed together without him and with a two year old charging around the place, trying to steal her hammer instead.

As she putting the slats in, her phone rang.

“Get that, will you?” she asked. Hardy had accepted that he wasn’t needed for construction and had been sorting out which part of the packaging was recyclable and not for ten minutes.

He picked her phone up and handed it to her.

“That’s not - I meant answer it!”

He coughed awkwardly. “It’s Lucy.”

“So?” He didn’t budge so she sighed dramatically and snatched the phone from him, wedging it between her shoulder and ear so she could still work. “Hey, Luce.”

“You busy today?”

“Working, but should be free later,” Ellie said. She carefully placed one of the slats on the bed and lined up the screw.

“What are you doing? What’s that noise? Doesn’t sound like you’re at work.”

Ellie closed her eyes and waited for patience to come. It was too early in the morning for Lucy’s particular brand of caring. “I’m at Hardy’s.”

“At this time? El, you dirty-”

“No-”

“He’s only just come back!”

“Lucy-”

“You didn’t hang about!”

“You’re never letting that drop, are you?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Fine,” Lucy relented, though Ellie could tell it was far from forgotten. “What are you doing there, then?”

“Screwing h-”

“WHAT?”

Ellie hung up and threw the phone in the general direction of her bag.

There was an awkward silence in which Ellie tried to carry on as though nothing had happened but her hand kept slipping.

“Do I want to know what that was about?” Hardy picked up a screw that had rolled across the floor and gave it back to her. She took it from him and he held the wood as she put it back in place.

“It’s that stupid fucking harder Hardy joke,” she all but growled. “She refuses to-”

“What joke?”

Ellie dropped the screwdriver.

Refusing to look at him or acknowledge that anything weird had just happened, she picked it up and went back to work. “Did I never tell about this?” she asked casually.

He shook his head.

“Remember the trial, when they accused us of having an affair?” She said it as matter of factly as she could, but she could feel her voice shake. Even the vaguest hint of her time in the box made her panic. “She thought it was funny. She kept making all these jokes. I think it was to make me feel better.”

Oddly enough, it had worked. Those few weeks, the two sisters had been closer than they had been in a long time. Until, of course, Lucy had committed perjury and everything went back to normal.

“Right.” Hardy tested the strength of the slat and picked up the next one.

With him being his usual talkative self, Ellie felt a nervous bubble rise in her and was talking before she had even settled on what she was going to say.

“Can’t believe they even thought that would work. Ridiculous, wasn’t it?” She glanced at him and saw he was watching her. “Us two?”

“Yeah,” Hardy said. “Completely unbelievable.”

Ellie couldn’t look away from him as she tried to work out what his expression meant. Was he angry with her for invading his privacy and building his bed for him still? Annoyed she had made him late for work? Having unpleasant flashbacks of the trial?

Or, like her, was he remembering a sunny day in a tiny hut, saying goodbye to a person they didn’t want to see leave?

It hadn’t been until Ellie had faced the reality of him going that she realised how much she had come to rely on him and enjoyed his company. It hit her all at once as she selfishly failed to find a reason to keep him there. She had thought it would pass, but even after Fred had stopped asking after his Uncle Alec, her thoughts still drifted to him and where he was.

A few times, lonely night and long days mostly, she considered picking up the phone. The words never came to her and eventually she sated her curiosity by telling herself that he hadn’t bothered to contact her.

“Can you imagine?” she said with a faint chuckle.

“We’d kill each other within a week.”

Ellie smiled, trying not imagine the week in question. “Only if Jeremy Kyle couldn’t save us.”

“I’d get into a fight with the prick and you’d run off with Graham.”

She laughed and set the screwdriver down. “That should be all right for now. You can do the rest yourself.”

They stood up and put the mattress on top of the new structure. All that was left was the headboard. She collected her things as he straightened out his sheets.

“I really was going to do it eventually. I just prioritised the stuff Daisy needed,” he explained as they headed out to the car. “Please don’t tell everyone.”

“Okay, but I’m definitely telling them you’ve watched enough _Jeremy Kyle_ to know Graham.”

Hardy scowled at her and Ellie laughed.

Yes, she thought after he sulked for the entire drive, it was definitely good to have him back.


End file.
